Enforcement
by oppex
Summary: The transition from Spirit to Marie for One Star Meister Franken Stein. Funny how a guy who can resonate with any weapon has such a hard time finding one. One shot.


In the end, Death was only slightly inconvenienced.

In the beginning, he was frustrated by limited options.

"Now, Spirit. I'm sure you can reconsider," he had cajoled. Usually that fatherly tone _worked_ on students.

It was entirely ineffective in the face of seventeen-year-old Spirit Albarn's righteous indignation.

"No."

Death began to speak again. Spirit didn't allow him to get past the first syllable.

"_No_. No way in hell."

"He-"

"Five years! That's totally not okay! I have _scars_!"

And so Lord Death found himself considering his options over a cup of tea while Spirit Albarn moved out of the apartment he shared with his now ex-partner. Of course, he _was_ Death, and so inspiration struck him fairly quickly.

...On the other hand, even Death has bad ideas from time to time.

"This is my first time having a real meister," Asuza said loudly, as though she considered Stein a particularly slow child. She was pacing back in forth in his-and now _their_-living room. "I am very excited about this partnership! Here is a list of rules I expect you to follow."

Stein himself was slouched sulkily on the sofa. He was still smarting over losing Spirit to some...some _girl_. His greatest experiment, ruined by overactive hormones. He accepted the list with an almost comically deep frown.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with keeping scalpels and antiseptic in your bedroom," he started lowly, but was immediately cut off. Asuza was not one to accept foolishness of any sort.

"We'll begin practice first thing tomorrow morning. Our goal is perfect resonation rates within the next five days. Failure is entirely unacceptable. ATTENTION!"

Asuza had never had a proper meister before, but she did have a lot of experience with forcing Stein to follow the rules. Her last barked command had him on his feet in a rigid stance before he could really think about what he was doing.

He figured it was going to be a long year.

The next day Stein found himself on hall duty with his new weapon. It was uneventful, boring, and when Asuza chose to speak, nigh on unbearable.

That all changed when a hapless student who had flourished a hall pass on the way to the restroom tried to return to his class.

"Halt, miscreant!" Asuza snapped, placing herself in his path. Stein obediently followed her lead, but didn't have the social grace necessary to note the nervous look on the other student's face at his presence. He had something of a reputation.

"You were issued a hall pass, valid for precisely five minutes!" she barked. The student groaned.

"Yeah, so?...I'm goin' back to class!"

"Wrong! You were gone for five minutes _and thirty-nine seconds_! That is a direct violation of the DWMA code of conduct! Section thirteen, paragraph four hundred and seventy-three!"

The student looked unimpressed. Stein looked bored.

Asuza spoke.

"Justice must be served! Stein!"

Stein glanced over at her, suddenly _almost_ interested.

"KILL!"

It was an unexpected order. Stein blinked. The student blinked.

Stein grinned. The student _screamed_.

"Yeah, look, my bad. It's not going to work out like I hoped it would."

Lord Death gave the students standing before him a stern eye. It went unnoticed because of his mask.

"Stein, I'll get back to you on the whole weapon thing. And Asuza..."

The weapon stood to attention immediately. "Sir?"

"Sniping students from unoccupied classrooms, whether they stand in violation of the school rules or not, is now an offense punishable by detention and remedial lessons. See Section three hundred and twenty-two of the DWMA code of conduct, paragraph eighteen. Try to keep that in mind with your next meister."

Stein drifted down the hallway. He was out of a weapon again and life was boring. More boring than it had been in a long time. Spirit has been a great experiment and working with Asuza had been a lot of fun, but this aimlessness was...distressing.

When he stopped at a random doorway, it wasn't because he saw something that caught his interest. It was because he _felt_ it. For the first time in his life, his perpetual urge to dissect...dissolved.

A few seconds later, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hi, uh," the mystery student giggled, "hi. I'm Marie."

Stein looked back at her. She was blonde, slim. He recognized her from his class so she had to be a few years older than he was.

"Oh," he said. He didn't know what else_ to _say.

"I think you're really cute. And smart." she giggled again. "And cute. Want to be my boyfriend?"

Stein had no idea what that entailed, other than taking other people's weapons away from them.

"Okay," is what he said.

Marie, who really _did_ think Stein was cute on some level but who also wanted Joe, her recently-coined-_ex_-boyfriend, to see that she was perfectly fine without him, knew that Stein was something of a strange kid. She knew that he didn't like to be touched.

So she was naturally surprised when he reached for her hand. She hadn't expected him to be such a romantic.

Stein, who knew and cared nothing about romance, was _very_ interested in Marie.

But he was more interested in how soothing her soul wavelength was, and how much stronger that soothed feeling became when they touched.

Lord Death, who knew a great deal more than either one of them, hummed in the Death Room and allowed himself to be relieved that the matter was closed.

In the beginning, he was frustrated by his lack of options.

But in the end, he was only slightly inconvenienced.


End file.
